Which has NOTHING to do with what we're talking about here. If you think that transitioning beyond 1.1 to 2.0 or 3.0 would solve the issue that this thread is about, you've either not been paying attention, or you simply know very little about hardware.

Ronin, I"m talking about fixing the stutter issue. I'm not sure what you are talking about....

|MaguS|

01-28-05, 09:03 AM

Im just confused...

Sgt_Pitt

01-28-05, 11:03 AM

im just angry :(

Ronin

01-28-05, 09:19 PM

It's not that I'm confused. I just find your lobbying peculiar.

I think it's pretty clear, actually.

You have people bitching and moaning about things they don't know a damn thing about, from graphics/gaming engines to card designs. It's typical, actually, for people to complain about what they don't know about, because if they did, they'd understand better exactly what's going on.

All you whiners that don't know anything, do the rest of us a favor that do and pipe down.

bmg

01-28-05, 09:37 PM

You're wrong, but thanks for trying, and you totally misunderstood what I said to begin with.

What's being talked about a fundamental code change, and it's not just a change on one level, but several.

How do I know? I work for a game developer.
You're from San Diego. Any chance you work for SOE?

Ronin

01-28-05, 11:27 PM

My location has nothing to do with this discussion.

If you're looking to grasp at straws, you're doing a good job.

ChrisRay

01-29-05, 01:02 AM

I think it's pretty clear, actually.

You have people bitching and moaning about things they don't know a damn thing about, from graphics/gaming engines to card designs. It's typical, actually, for people to complain about what they don't know about, because if they did, they'd understand better exactly what's going on.

All you whiners that don't know anything, do the rest of us a favor that do and pipe down.

If you know something we dont. Perhaps you could feel free to share it. You have all but accused me of leading people on. I simply posted the research I did on this paticular subject. People are going to intepret those results how they see fit.

I dont see the problem with their complaints. They are rightfully frustrated with an issue that seems to be affecting them. I understand "Why" your annoyed. But I just am questioning the ends and your peculiar purpose. Most importantly. "Why you care so much".

Chris

Ronin

01-29-05, 01:29 AM

Question all you like. It's not your concern. My stance stays the same, and so does my opinion of a good chunk of the people posting here, including yourself.

ChrisRay

01-29-05, 01:42 AM

Would you like to add anything to the discussion at this point? You can have an opinion. Heck. Feel free to judge me all you like. But you seem to continously insult people and put them down here. Why?

P.S. It is also our concern to make sure these forums dont become a flame fest.

Ronin

01-29-05, 01:47 AM

I've said my peace. I doubt anyone who falls into the category I've already lined up cares, but the people that understand exactly what's being suggested realize the fix/change is not a simple one, and that the fix isn't one (changing from PS 1.1 to 2.0, for example, will not change the issues they are experiencing, nor will changing the line from CPU processing to GPU processing).

The short answer is this. Things are handled the way they are for a reason. Question it all you like, but it's up to SOE to respond. Complain all you like, but I'm going to bet you won't get an answer. Must people always have an answer all the time? Accept things as they are, and move on, or figure out how those of us that have 6800's (several, in fact, in my case) can play flawlessly, so that you can, too.

I'm done with this topic, as I simply can't handle the idiocy anymore.

ChrisRay

01-29-05, 01:59 AM

Alright, So lets clarify your position on this. Just so I understand it properly. I would like you to forgive me and us for being "Mis informed".

#1. You dont believe that there is any performance to be gained from transfering some geometry load to the GPU. Personally I dont agree with you here. I understand why Sony chose not too. But the GPU has alot of geometry processing power being wasted. Assuming the polygons were skinned on the GPU, It would free up more power to the CPU. It's not really unreasonable to assume this.

#2. You dont believe that implementing SM 2.0 was a magical performance fix for the slow performance in EQ 2. I agree. But that doesnt neccasarily mean there arent certain areas in the game that could benefit from a more unified lighting model. If you have any reason to believe otherwise. I'd like for you to share it. Obviously the entire game wouldnt need to be filled with SM 2.0 type shaders. There are many shaders in HL2, Far Cry ect which dont need high precision longer instructons.

But surely there are situations and circumstances where some lighting shaders can be processed in a single pass. The real question is. What shaders would benefit from this? Obviously not all of them.

#3. I dont see a reason for your hostility here. I personally have never suggested switching to SM 2.0 for every shader was the solution. Actually its obsurd. I do believe geometry processing could be better balanced between GPU and CPU currently. I also b believe there are circumstances where single passing some shaders might be ideal to current rendering method. I understand that such recoding will take a great deal of time and I also understand that it would require extensive testing and restesting of every changed area.

#4. As a matter of fact, I dont suffer from the stutter. But that does not mean it doesnt exist for several users. Because we dont have a stuttering issue does mean that others dont. Secondly its obvious that this discussion has gone off topic since there are well over 180 posts/replies. As such I thought it was within merit to discuss the EQ 2 engine. The only thing I have experienced with EQ 2 is poor performance. ((But within reasonable expectation as well))

bmg

01-29-05, 02:28 AM

My location has nothing to do with this discussion.

If you're looking to grasp at straws, you're doing a good job.
You didn't answer the question. Do you work for SOE? You said you work in the game development business and your location is San Diego. Seems like an obvious question, especially considering some of your comments.

BTW, I just finished a long EQ2 session with some friends. It's become the only game I play (and I play a lot) and yes, it runs great on my system.

ChrisRay

01-29-05, 02:29 AM

Guys where he works isnt important. Please drop that discussion.

bmg

01-29-05, 02:32 AM

Guys where he works isnt important. Please drop that discussion.
Ok, but it seems like he's dropped plenty of hints, whether they were intended or not.

Ronin

01-29-05, 02:52 AM

See what you wish. San Diego is a big place, and there are several Game dev companies here. More directly, I don't live in San Diego anymore, and haven't for over a year, although I am still in California.

killahsin

01-29-05, 09:22 AM

There are quite a few of us here who do understand game design. Although I do agree with basis of what ronin is saying about those whom don't know any better. I do not agree with the assumption that going from 1.1-3 would not offer much improved performance. In fact in some instances it would improve performance greatly. If you wish we can get into the technical sides as to how. But that would be rather boring, long winded, and I would sound like a carmack fanboy. The point is simply this in laymen terms. Visually eq2 is impressive. So much so its almost came as a shock to many that its not 2 or 3. The issue people in the know are having is this: 1-2 = less more ; 3 = more less. Thus the cpu is being over used when you can offload some of this by going to sm3, with longer single algs. As I havent slept yet I'm probably not making much sense here. I'm not sure it was Chris's intention to say it was easy, or anyone elses for that matter. Least not any intelligent persons. But whats the point of hlsl if its not being fully optimized in a seriously high level shader intensive game? One could assume based off understanding basic math, that certain slowdowns could be nullified, like during combat and the particle engine is going wild.

Now I can understand from a coders perspective. I get yelled at all the time for finding bugs in code. But you must also understand from a gamers perspective. As for the stuttering, thats all backend texture issues, in my opinion. The more memory you have the less intensive the stutter is, the longer it takes to develop. And yes this is from serious testing. But as in the past were at a stage where the infamous stutter will be showing its face more frequently in games. So while some people are blaming said on code paths, i am quite sure it has nothing to do with the paths. More so on the management of memory.

Sorry for my disjointed thoughts been up all night.

Anker Steadfast

01-29-05, 10:14 AM

*unlurks*

Having followed this thread for a while, I must admit I'm quite puzzled by some of the info uncovered.
First of all, thanks ChrisRay, your insight and concrete data makes for a good discussion. :)

Secondly, while I can understand why SOE puts so much of their graphics load on the CPU in order to support old Hardware, I'm also rather disgruntled about it. It makes my upgrades almost worthless, which is silly. The average FPS difference in EQ II between my GeForce 3 Ti 200 (64 MB) and my GeForce XF 6800 GT (256 MB) on High Performanced (not even Balanced) is about 4 FPS in 1024 x 768 resolution ... that's just sad. It gets a bit more in favor of the 6800 in higher resolutions especially in outdoors zones, but it's still sad.

What CPU I have ? Why, a 2.53 Ghz Pentium 4 ... it's not exactly an old CPU.

Anyways, I'm digress ... back to the topic.
The point is, I can understand it was a choice they must have made during development, and thus, while I'm disapointed, I'm not really angry at them.

Nvidia now ... they slapped their logo on the game and said "The way it's meant to be played" ... that makes me angry. A graphics card producer hailing a game that almost makes no use of their card as something they support .. BAH. All I can say is that I bet there was money involved ... lots.

They *should* have tested the game SOE made.
They *should* have noticed that the game scales incredibly bad on bigger graphics cards.
They *should not* have put their logo on it.

And that's the crux of it - A lot of angry people feels they have been cheated.
And who's to say they weren't ?
They have a good argument after all.

And as killahsin mentioned, what's the point of new technology if it isn't used ?

Graphicmaniac

01-29-05, 11:24 AM

when soe will look that wow is getting x times their numbers of copy sold and online users, maybe they will understand that something in this game is wrong if they will lose against wow even having the biggest mmorpg brand name in the earth that is Everquest..

Downside

01-29-05, 11:26 AM

Ronin, I understand application design just fine, I've been doing it for years, and while I don't code any 3d engines or game logic, I've spent enough time staring at code to know a thing or two.

I think it's pretty clear, actually.

You have people bitching and moaning about things they don't know a damn thing about, from graphics/gaming engines to card designs. It's typical, actually, for people to complain about what they don't know about, because if they did, they'd understand better exactly what's going on.

All you whiners that don't know anything, do the rest of us a favor that do and pipe down.

First off, a public message board isn't just for the know-it-alls. While I'm sure you would love to have a forum to come and impart us all with your vastly superior knowledge, and have no one question it, probably not goint ot happen. If you have information to share, other than telling everyone how stuipid they are, and that they should all just shut up, feel free. But if your just here to troll and insult people, maybe you should be the one who pipe's down.

Hears what I do "know", without resorting to saying "ohh I work for X so I know better than you. Considering you have never posted anything to show any kind of technical skill, you could be the janitor at broderbund for all we know. But I Forgot, we're supposed to take your word for it on everything you say. For some reason you remind of me of the Wizard of Oz.

1. EQ2's graphics engine had a percieved major performance problem on a large number of 6x00 graphics cards owners. Not everyone who had a 6800 had the problem or if they did, didn't notice it, but it was there for many. This is most likely caused by the cpu being overloaded compared to the gpu when rendering geometry.

2. EQ2 also had a stuttering problem for some, also not for everyone, but for many.

3. EQ2 had the TWIMTBP logo on it, when it in fact runs BETTER on ATI's hardware. Lumped into this you could put the SOE statements saying how EQ2's graphics engine was designed for the future, and no current video card can run it at full detail, well guess what, no card of tomarrow is going to either if the overall performance is bottlenecked by the cpu at such a low level. And no engine optimized for the future would be runing PS1.1, simply becuase NV and ATI don't tweak thier drives or thier hardware pipeline designs to improve PS1.1 processing speed, since pretty much every game out there that runs exclusively in PS1.1 mode is already plenty fast. Feel free to point out any other current game engines hamstrung in such a way.

4. SOE had an abysmal response considering all these people are paying customers, with ongoing montly subscription costs. The official forum thread got hardly any response at all, and when it did, it just made things worse.

5. Other game developement studio's doing cutting edge graphics engines don't seem to have hit some kind of roadblock with their engines that caused them to hamstring it's performance by loading the cpu with geometry processing while letting the gpu twiddle half it's pipelines doing jack and squat. So either someone there made a bad decision, or they lack knowledge and/or skill

6. Whille your origional post indicating that ChrisRay should have gone to SOE and NVidia first with his findings, so they could start work on a PR statement to spin the information's release in thier favor initially makes you like like you work for SOE, or possibly NV, your subsequent posts have pretty much ruled that out, since I can't imagine anyone working for those two companies would be dumb enough to troll on a message board like you have and insult it's customers. If you are trying to advocate for SOE or NV, your doing a terrible job at it.

I guess you would adhere to the ingorance is bliss concept when it comes to keeping customers happy.

Hat's off to ChrisRay who pulled the curtain back, so to speak.

Tyr-Sog

01-29-05, 02:01 PM

I've said my peace. I doubt anyone who falls into the category I've already lined up cares, but the people that understand exactly what's being suggested realize the fix/change is not a simple one, and that the fix isn't one (changing from PS 1.1 to 2.0, for example, will not change the issues they are experiencing, nor will changing the line from CPU processing to GPU processing).

The short answer is this. Things are handled the way they are for a reason. Question it all you like, but it's up to SOE to respond. Complain all you like, but I'm going to bet you won't get an answer. Must people always have an answer all the time? Accept things as they are, and move on, or figure out how those of us that have 6800's (several, in fact, in my case) can play flawlessly, so that you can, too.

I'm done with this topic, as I simply can't handle the idiocy anymore.

or just quit paying for a unfinished product and put people like you out of a job. ;)

Blacklash

01-29-05, 03:24 PM

Well I certainly was not suggesting PS 2.0 or SM 3.0 would "fix" EQ II. I was merely suggesting it would be nice for a card that I paid over 500 bones for to use the more advanced tech more often. I distinctly remember hearing rumors being circulated that EQ II would implement SM 3.0 tech. Now they could have just been unwarrented BS.

I am starting to believe in the consumers that push the idea of buying the last generations best thing are onto something, when you consider money spent and performance had. Or as an alternative buying the high end "main stream" card. Like a 6800 or 6600 GT.

I am willing to learn and willing to take correction, and not willing take verbal abuse offering no opportunity for either.

MaLk^

01-30-05, 03:59 AM

Man, I have some advice for you guys. Switch over to World of Warcraft (runs greta on a 6800), and Sony will get the message if enough people drop.

I haven't played EQ2 yet, but I am gald that when I play I worry about playing the game not how will my system perform.

OMG!

Nice and productive answer to a thread discussing slolutions to an existing problem.

MaLk^

01-30-05, 04:01 AM

Um, it's program code, its as easy to get to as opening whatever dev tool was used to create it and accessing the source code or objects. Writing that code might require some skill, but getting to it certainly don't.

On the performance issue, I do think it has improved recently. I've never had the stutering problem, other than thrashing from the memory leak after time, so I have no idea as to that, but the frame rate does seem to have improved somewhat.

Then maybe its just me that has gotten better at tweking the settings :)

Anker Steadfast

01-30-05, 02:09 PM

After considering the aspects of how the graphics engine of EverQuest II works, I've been thinking about what CPU would be the best.

Obviously it'll need a lot of RAM access, since so much is worked there, and a big 2nd level cache would be good as well. Most likely it would need a fast front side bus too.

Sounds like the latest P4 Extreme Edition would fit perfectly.
They have a Socket 775 version that runs 1066 MHz FSB and has a solid 2 MB L2 cache.
Add in a nice Raid harddrive and overclock the CPU slightly (if you can) and it should yield some great FPS in EQ II on pretty much any of the newer graphics cards.

Thoughts and ideas ?

btw : Did ChrisRay do all his tests with the same CPU ?

saturnotaku

01-30-05, 02:12 PM

The P4 EE has 2 mb of L3 cache, not L2. In that regard it still only has 512 kb.